Blog Statistics

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

This is amusing enough. We have new U.S. Census statistics showing that the number of reported same-sex couples has virtually exploded in the last decade, with various states reporting increases averaging at 50% since 2000. Researchers are making it clear that this isn’t so much a case of people suddenly turning queer and shacking up with the first same-sex person they see, but simply because of increased social acceptance that leads to more gay couples feeling safe enough to declare themselves.

Of course, the primary tack from the religious-Right about gay folks is about how they’re supposedly all cunning and deviant (and cunningly deviant) and out to forcefully transform heterosexual society into a perverted mecca of steamy gay sex and pink poodles and kids eating raw bunnies around a campfire made from the bones of Sarah Palin. (… Okay, I may have stretched that one a bit.) Either way, the very last thing that anti-gay conservatives seem to expect is for gays to actually end up behaving like, well, normal folks. I mean, queers, acting like you and me? Now that’s an abomination.

According to the research, many same-sex couples are doing something straight couples have been doing for generations: getting older, having kids, and moving to the suburbs.

These trends, both the spread of gay people living openly, and of gay populations mirroring trends in the straight population, are playing out nationwide.

Wait. I don’t get it. Are aging, reproducing and settling down supposed to be uniquely heterosexual traits? Why all the surprise over the news that homosexual folks actually end up acting, not like “straight couples”, but plain ol’ normal citizens like you and me?

Oh, right, pink poodles.

Not that I have much more to add, but I thought this was revealing enough:

Religious opponents of same-sex marriage continue using church bulletins, diocesan newspapers and sermons from the pulpit to encourage their followers to contact legislators and let them know how they feel. They are convinced that legislation is the key to putting a stop to same-sex marriages in America.

First, they cite biblical injunctions against homosexuality. Second, they warn that social services, like foster care and adoption, provided by religiously sponsored charities could be endangered by the legalization of same-sex marriage.

So much for the anti-marriage-equality camp not being fueled by religion.

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About Me

I’m a liberal skeptic, rationalist & third-wave atheist stuck in a rut in Québec, Canada and who spends his time composing, writing, drawing, harboring a layman’s passion for science and technology, getting angry at social injustices, and most of all, jabbing cretins and trolls with sharp pointy sticks. (Oh, and blogging.) Proud owner of a Nize Hat!, an indomitable SIWOTI syndrome and an itchy snark finger.

You can find all my musical, literary and artistic works at my art blog, Creativitas.